Recently, thanks to the rapid advancement of microcomputer and materials technologies, portable electronic devices have been made progressively smaller and lighter. Therefore, more and more people have changed their reading habits and begun to use e-book readers in place of the traditional paper-based books as the main information reading media. Similarly, digital photo frames are gradually replacing the traditional ones. Also, with the development of mobile broadband networking technology, sonic other portable electronic devices have gained increasing importance in people's daily lives. For example, personal digital assistants (PDAs), smart phones, and tablet PCs have, for some, been indispensable tools for work, socializing, and learning.
Due to their powerful functions and wide application, the aforementioned portable electronic devices are used more and more frequently. To prevent such portable electronic devices from damage, various protective elements were developed, some common commercially available examples of which are laptop/mobile phone skins, protective cases, adhesive protective films, and protective covers. These protective elements serve mainly to protect portable electronic devices from scratches resulting from contact with a pointed object or from friction. When it comes to the impact of an external force, however, the aforesaid protective elements provide little protection, in other words, the conventional protective elements for use with portable electronic devices are configured only for keeping a portable electronic device from superficial damage but not for providing sufficient resistance to collision which may cause substantial damage. Obviously, the protection provided by a conventional protective element to a portable electronic device leaves much to be desired.
Now that existing protective elements designed specifically for portable electronic devices fail to provide complete protection, the issue to be addressed by the present invention is to design a protective case capable of mitigating external impact. This protective case should be able to reduce the impact to which a portable electronic device enclosed in the protective case is subjected, thereby preventing the portable electronic device from damage by collision.